"The stars are constantly shining, but often we do not see them until the darkest hours."

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Rollin' On

Most of my very close friends know that for the last few months I've been really stressing over Mr. X and him wanting to get out of the military. He was dead set on getting out. Ever since Toots came along he's wanted to be able to stay home and see hime and all his milestones. Thats a good thing, yes I know. However his paycheck is what pays the mortgage, his carpayment, cell, and insurance. We could not even come close to surviving off my salary alone.

I had thought his re-enlistment date was next month if he decided to stay in however it turns out it was today!! Two weeks ago he tells me that he's getting out and that the command is doing an awards ceremony for him. His honorable discharge/tour of duty and all that. He asks me to take the time off and join him.

I immediately start freaking out try to think of what we can do to save up to try and last as long as we can until he can find a civilian job. THEN.....I started asking questions and thinking. Yes...thinking.

Do they really give ceremony's to guys getting out??? He mentioned once needing new dog tags. Hmmm...why would he need those getting out. Oh and the braces. (yes he has them, we deal with it). I asked him about when they would come off and he said in the next month or two. They had to be off before he went on the boat. Wait....what boat?? So I talked to some other military wives and they all said it didn't sound like he was getting out. So I started to hope.

Today comes and I was seriously a basket of nerves. Before they started I thought I might throw up. The guy...can't remember if it was his chief or someone else....starts reading off about an award he got. Then I hear the word "re-enlist". I swear I thought my heart was going ot beat out of my chest and I might hyperventilate.

So the guy looks at me and says that he's under the impression that Mr. X told me I was there to watch him just get an award. And that they were going to just do this discharge. However he didn't want me to fall over with a heart attack so he would just skip that and swear him in. So I got to stand up and hold the bible while he was sworn in. I had to bite my cheek from crying.

He got his certificates for re-enlisting, his coin, his pin, etc. Then they gave ME a certificate. For my support and faith in his decision to re-enlist...yada yada yada. Sweet though you know?? After that we just had a BBQ, everyone ate, joked around and had a good time.

Some of you might wonder why in the world would I WANT him to re-enlist. If you haven't noticed our economy SUCKS. Like horribly. Our house was just purchased last year and we have 2 kids in the house. Yes, it's going to be crappy dealing with deployements. Yes he will miss things with the kids. But in the long run, in the big picture I see it as the lesser of 2 evils.

I'm not worried about being on my own for months at a time. It will stink not having him to turn to at night or even just to annoy me for crazy reasons. But I know I can survive. If nothing else, taking care of Monkey by myself for almost 4 years has taught me that. I can get through anything. So we will have lots of emails and care packages. I'll take lots of photo's and video's for him to watch when he gets home if he wants. We'll find a way to fill that void while he's gone.

It won't be long before we deal with it too. The boat he's going too he'll be deployed on almost immediately when he reports at the end of August. He should only be gone about 3 months that time. Given there are no extensions he'll be home for the holidays which is a positive. We may just have to have the kids birthay party in late August instead of the middle of September so that he can be here. See....there's always a way to make it work.

I gotta say there is something to be said about a man who will sacrafice his wants over his families needs. If only more men would do that. Maybe there wouldn't be so many broken families.

1 comment:

I can relate to the scary feeling of thinking about leaving the military! My husband and I are both very glad we made the decision years ago to stay in til they kick him out, lol. I'm glad you're happy with the decision and what a surprise!